Threads
by Cute Apples
Summary: Their lives did not first intersect because of a soccer ball. This is the before, during, and after: chronicles of two souls inexplicably bound. Tōshirō x Karin.
1. I: Firsts

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me.

Chapter One: Firsts

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The first time Hitsugaya Tōshirō met Kurosaki Karin, she could not even walk.

Instead she crawled, pushing a diminutive black and white soccer ball with her hand across the soft grass of the large park, following on her hands and knees. Tōshirō watched her approach with expressionless eyes from where he sat on a green park bench.

She was far from the playground where he assumed she should be on the other side of the park, and if he had been in a gigai he would have picked her up and walked her back to her mother or father. He didn't see anyone nearby that could lay claim to the tiny girl with riotous black hair and solemn onyx eyes.

He was partly concerned that if she kept on pushing that ball, she would push it right out onto the busy street behind him with no one to stop her. It annoyed him to realize that if she continued, he'd actually have to act on that vague sense of worry, and he begrudged her for even making him think about helping her out. He idly considered stopping her now, but dismissed the notion as too much effort.

Despite his half-hearted mental attempts to get her to stop, she continued on with a single-minded intensity that nearly had him smiling at her determination. She wasn't mindlessly pushing the ball with no destination in mind; she had a _purpose. _

"Little girl," he said when she was close enough to hear him, even though he knew she couldn't, "you should go back to the playground." She didn't look up. She paused, pushed the ball slightly, took a few shuffling movements forward, and repeated the process.

He felt some of his (albeit rather incremental) worry dissipate when he noted that she seemed to be aiming for the park bench rather than the open expanse of road. At least then she might simply stop there and not go any farther. It saved him the hassle of actually having to _move. _She was close enough now that he could have reached down and picked her up. One more push, and the ball stopped mere inches away from his left foot. She shuffled forward a bit more.

Then, to his surprise, she didn't push the ball anymore, but simply sat up a bit and examined the ball where it was. She reached out with one tiny, chubby hand…

…and tugged on the black hakama of his shihakushō.

Tōshirō immediately assumed he had just imagined that she had touched him, but the tug came again, more insistent this time. Wide teal eyes leaned forward to gaze into the dark eyes of a toddler who had no business seeing a Shinigami. He hadn't ever heard of a human this young being able to see a Shinigami, but apparently this one could—in fact, he had never heard of a human who could see a Shinigami at all. Probing, he felt the tiniest spark of Reiryoku—barely enough to even register, but far more than he expected of anyone, much less a _toddler. _

She tugged again at his hakama, this time looking away from his teal eyes to stare pointedly at her ball before looking imploringly up at him.

"You want me to play?" he interpreted incredulously. She didn't show any sign of understanding him, but Tōshirō chalked that up as her age. She looked to be less than a year old (not that he was a good judge of the age of any child; it was more a rough, instinctual guess).

Hesitantly, he gave a nudge with his toe, kicking the ball forward a few inches. He watched, amazed, as she plopped back down onto all fours and repositioned herself so she was sitting more in front of him than at his side. She then pushed the ball right back into his foot with her hands.

"You know," he said conversationally, now knowing that she could probably hear him if she could see him (even if she might not be able to understand what he was saying), "your mother is probably looking for you."

She was silent, putting her hands out in front of her to stop the ball, albeit a little uncoordinatedly, and then pushing it in his direction. He used his left foot to stop the ball before it rolled too far in the wrong direction, bringing it back in front of him.

"Why'd you wander off, anyway?" She ignored him, pushing the ball back at his waraji with more force than before. He assumed that she hadn't yet mastered the differences in force.

He was relieved that his fukutaichō, Matsumoto Rangiku, had wanted to chase after a Hollow on the other side of the small town, leaving him by himself. He didn't know how he'd respond to her teasing if she discovered her "tiny taichō" (the latest nickname) playing with a _baby. _

Tōshirō snorted to himself. _She'd probably babble on about me finding a girl closer to my height, _he thought grumpily, kicking the ball a little bit more forcefully than he had intended. His eyes widened when the ball hit the little girl, missing her outstretched hands and knocking her backwards with a whoosh of exhaled air. Her head hit the ground with a thud.

Leaping up, he crouched next to her, gingerly lifting up her head to make sure he hadn't inflicted any permanent damage. He was amazed at how her tiny head was nearly able to fit in the palm of his hand, further reinforcing the fragility of her human existence. It didn't _look _like her head had hit particularly hard, but…

"Hey," he said softly, trying to see if her eyes were dilating dangerously. "Are you alright?"

She blinked up at him owlishly with her large, large eyes. It didn't seem like was injured…

Almost as if to prove him wrong, she turned slightly, pressing her face into his tan palm as she rearranged her tiny limbs underneath her body and pushed herself back up. His other hand reached out automatically to steady her slightly unsteady back.

"Easy," he cautioned. "Are you sure you aren't going to cry?"

She stared at him, one hand resting on his knee for balance, her face expressionless. He could almost imagine her saying, _Are you serious? Me, cry? _It was almost unnerving, seeing such a serious expression on such a young face.

_Maybe that's why I always unsettle the unseated Shinigami, _Tōshirō mused thoughtfully, seeing now why they'd be so disturbed at a young face not showing many emotions. Not that he had a lot of experience with kids or anything, but he knew that they were supposed to be a lot more emotive that this one was—seeing the blank expression on her face just didn't seem _right__._ All his mental images of toddlers were of crying swaddles of snot and tears, or round, rosy cheeks laughing madly at anything that moved. Obviously he had been wrong.

"You don't smile enough," he informed her, at which she blinked. He imagined the reply as, _Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black? _

Scowling at her imagined reply, he reached over and snagged the soccer ball, placing it in her tiny hands. He helped her balance with his hand at her back and she let go of his knee to take hold of the ball. She looked down at the ball in her hands, almost confused, before she tossed it away in favor of attempting to crawl into his lap.

"Wait a second—" he started to protest, but figured it was quite futile as she continued her ascent until she was comfortably sitting in his lap, tiny hands knotted in his black kosode and gazing up at him, her tiny face inches away from his scowling one.

"I'm not a jungle gym," he mumbled, disgruntled. He conveniently ignored the fact that he could have just as easily displaced her or impeded her climb by not helping her balance on the way up. She blinked again (he was starting to realize that this was her way of responding to him), loosened her small fist, and reached upwards.

She got as far as his ear before her reach ended, and for the first time he saw her expression change to a scowl, minuscule black eyebrows brought together in a fierce glare. He felt his own countenance darken automatically in response.

"What?" he asked defensively, his expression seeming only to anger her further. She grabbed onto the closest thing she could find—his left ear—and _jerked _downwards.

"Ouch!" he yelped, head automatically dipping to the side as his eyes narrowed. He was half-tempted to tug on her ear and see how she liked it, but he quickly realized that such an action would be quite immature. It was hardly becoming of a Shinigami of his caliber to be mad at a _toddler _for doing something she probably hadn't even realized had hurt him.

He then discovered that his ear hadn't been her goal: his hair was. She had made a fist out of her tiny hand in the long white locks, and out of the corner of his eye he could see that the miniature scowl on her face had now blossomed into a wide smile with two glints of pearly teeth in the pink gummy depths.

"Like my hair, don't you?" Tōshirō asked, feeling himself soften despite the tight grip on his hair that prevented movement.

"Shirō," she cooed softly, startling him at the clear pronunciation of part of his name, even if she had only been referring to his hair color. He half turned to see her grinning face better.

"That's right," he found himself saying. "Shirō. It's short for Tōshirō."

He could feel Matsumoto's reiatsu nearby, so he reached up and gently removed the tiny hand from his hair, straightening up when he had done so. She had stopped smiling, but now wore a happy expression on her face as her hand curled around his index finger.

"I have to go," he said, gently picking her up and putting her back on the ground. He snagged the ball for her again and put it in her lap, looking up and hoping to see someone coming to claim her. And to his relief, he saw in the distance a tall woman with long light brown hair, half-running and looking a little frantic.

"I think your mother is coming," Tōshirō told the girl, leaning down to meet her face. She once again wore the stoic expression that seemed to be her norm, clutching the ball tightly as she blinked at him.

He stepped away from her and he could see the brown-haired woman catch sight of the girl, hurrying over in a near sprint. Remembering the girl's ability to see him and realizing that she might have gotten that ability from her mother, he masked his reiatsu even further.

"Karin!" the woman cried, scooping up the girl and burying her face in the girl's dark curls. "What did I tell you about wandering away?"

The girl blinked. Tōshirō was immensely relieved to discover that he wasn't the only one she blinked in response to. She squirmed in her mother's arms, trying to turn around to keep him in her sight.

"Shirō," she said again, clearly. Her mother nearly dropped her, she was so startled.

"Karin?" she questioned, as if doubting that she'd heard the tiny voice.

"Shirō," she repeated insistently, trying to get to Tōshirō and dropping the ball in her struggles.

"Your first word…" her mother murmured, watching the tiny girl with awe. Tōshirō felt his own teal eyes widening in response—his _name _had been this little toddler's first _word? _Absurdly, he felt a huge wave of pride rush through him at this revelation.

"_Shirō!" _Karin said impatiently, staring at him and ignoring her mother's shocked expression. It seemed to finally hit the woman that her little girl wasn't just repeating her first word over and over, and she frowned in his general direction, giving him the distinct impression that she was able to see him. He was relieved when she bent down to scoop up the soccer ball.

"Let's go tell Ichigo about your first word!" she exclaimed loudly, spinning around and heading back to the playground on the other side of the park. She had taken all of two steps when she paused, hesitating, and then speaking two words so swiftly that Tōshirō was certain he had imagined them. And then she was bustling off, loudly proclaiming the genius of her "little Karin."

"Taichō!" Matsumoto cried, coming to a stop right next to him and flicking back her long strawberry blonde hair with a hand. "I've taken care of the Hollow, so now we're free to return to the Soul Society!"

He gave a noncommittal grunt, but didn't reply, frowning after the woman and little Karin.

"Taichō?" Matsumoto asked, following his gaze to the pretty woman carrying the small baby. Her voice seemed to startle him out of his reverie because he turned around, walking away from the park.

"Let's go, Matsumoto," he said shortly. Giving a speculative glance back at the woman, she shrugged, turning around and following her taichō.

Tōshirō sighed slightly, mentally answering the woman's last spoken words.

_You're welcome._

_

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_

A/N: Hello there! I'm new to the Bleach fandom and I figured I'd give Tōshirō/Karin a go. So it's up to you to let me know if I got their characterizations correct or not! In this one, I've envisioned Karin at about eight months old, which is right around the time for crawling and first words and such. Ichigo would be about four, and Masaki obviously still alive.

This was edited by the wonderful RukiLex who is doing a fine job at easing me into the fandom. It certainly wouldn't have been this good without her! I encourage you to check out her stories.

The entirety of this fic will be a series of inter-connected oneshots in chronological order, so Karin will certainly be going up in age. It won't be her as an eight-month-old forever.

Thank you for reading!

Roma


	2. II: Drips

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me.

Chapter Two: Drips

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If there was one thing that Hitsugaya Tōshirō truly and honestly despised, it was heat. He was able to tolerate the warm, gentle heat that the very mild Soul Society summers often brought, but this muggy, sticky, _oppressive _heat he had found pervaded the Human World's summers was simply unbearable.

Hands tucked into his hakama, Tōshirō resisted the urge to kick at an innocent pebble as he trudged across the sidewalk. Even the cement beneath his waraji was blistering. He usually didn't have to bother with this type of heat, since he rarely left Soul Society. However, every few years he and Matsumoto would accept a mission to the Human World instead of passing it off to a lower-ranked Shinigami. It was always wise of a leader to show that he wasn't afraid to do menial tasks with the rest of his subordinates.

_But damn it all, Matsumoto didn't have to take _this _particular mission at _this _particular time of year, _he thought to himself grumpily. He would have stopped her had he known about the mission, but she had somehow intercepted the Hell Butterfly listing the details of the mission and cheerfully told the sōtaichō in his stead that they'd be the ones going to Karakura Town for the routine patrol. He was positive that it had probably been one of the only times that she'd actually been awake (read: not drunk or hung over) during normal daylight hours.

He was also quite positive that the only reason she had wanted to go on this particular mission had something to do with the credit card she had apprehended for "supplying the Tenth Division with a healthy dosage of required optical stimulation." He translated this to mean that she had heard from someone that there would be a sale going on that she simply _couldn't _miss, and she thought it her duty to buy said clothing items to "optically stimulate" the Tenth Division Shinigami.

This left him, Hitsugaya Tōshirō, taichō of the Tenth Division and the most recent prodigy of the Gotei 13, wandering around a nearly deserted Karakura Town at the height of the day and nearly melting in his shihakushō.

Tōshirō had briefly considered using Hyōrinmaru to cool himself off, but the dragon had been quite adamant: he would not be used as a portable air conditioner to suit one of Tōshirō's "passing whims," as the dragon had snidely dubbed his request before sinking back into the no doubt icy and snowy recesses of Tōshirō's mind. He figured that if the dragon had to deal with the reality of this summer heat, he'd have second thoughts about refusing to cool things down.

The blistering temperature also had the tendency to instill an even greater lethargy than normal in people. He was quite certain that on any given day that wasn't melt-your-face-off hot, this street would be crammed with people. Instead, the typically busy street was nearly devoid of all human life, its usual inhabitants opting to stay home instead of brave the heat. Tōshirō only wished he could have been so lucky.

It wasn't even as if he had any reason to stay in this hellish place anyway; they had found the suspicious Hollow that had been carting off souls within the first quarter of an hour of being in Karakura. He hadn't even had to draw his Zanpakutō to kill it, either. But while he had been busy with that, Matsumoto had run off, credit card in hand. That had been a good three hours ago, and he knew it would probably be another three more before he saw her again.

He didn't even consider hunting her down. He knew she would have been incredibly obnoxious and insufferable if he cut off her shopping early, so it was best just to leave her alone to squander away Tenth Division funds.

Tōshirō conveniently ignored the fact that first, he could have easily commanded her to accompany him back to Soul Society, and second, she probably wouldn't have been that upset with him, either. Along those lines, he could have easily intercepted her before she took off with his credit card. But he liked to delude himself into believing that he was not seeking her out because of how grumpy she'd be and not because he was willing to suffer the unbearable heat for her happiness. Nope. Not at all.

_I hate being nice, _he sulked.

Movement on the other side of the street caught Tōshirō's gaze and he glanced over dismissively, not pausing his stride. He then slowed down and did a double take. Two little girls were standing outside of what appeared to be an ice cream parlor, sweltering in the heat, and a familiar pair of onyx eyes were locked onto him.

_Impossible, _his mind was quick to say, before he realized that it was less of an impossibility and more of an improbability. He hadn't kept track of the time that had passed between his last visit to the Human World and this one, so he hadn't consciously realized that she might not still be a baby. _Evidently not, _he drolly reminded himself as he arched an eyebrow at the girl's impressive glare.

Tōshirō had no trouble hearing the other girl's lilting voice as she tugged on the dark haired girl's sleeve. "Karin-chan, your ice cream is melting!" she cried out plaintively, attempting to stave off the melting liquid from slipping even further down the cone. Karin ignored her, choosing instead to glower intensely at the white-haired taichō. Tōshirō tried not to find it amusing that such a tiny girl could have such a fierce glare.

"Yuzu, can you get me a new one?" Karin finally asked, dragging her piercing onyx eyes away from his to look at the brunette at her side. The other girl nodded vigorously and dashed back into the shop, giving a shout of "Kaasan!" before the door had even closed.

Casually, Karin looked both ways down the street before striding across, directly towards him.

_She needn't have bothered looking, _Tōshirō added caustically, knowing that nearly no one was braving the heat, even with the cooling system most cars had. Regardless, he unconsciously glanced back and forth as well to confirm that no rogue cars were intent on making a Karin pancake. As she got closer, he took a steady step backwards into the shade of the building, eyeing the changes in her.

She looked easily three times larger than he had last seen her, and he estimated that she was about four or five years old. Her onyx hair had grown into choppy straight locks that ended at her jaw, and her stoic face looked just as serious as it had when she was a babe. She wasn't dressed in normal girl clothes, he noted, eyeing her scabby knees that peeked out of her grass-smeared shorts. Minus the dripping ice cream in her hand and the modernization, she looked like any other rough-and-tumble Rukongai kid.

"Who're you?" she demanded, inserting as much steel into her childish voice as possible. Tōshirō felt his snowy eyebrow rise and then dropped them just as quickly. He didn't need to stay and be interrogated by a mere chit of a girl. Turning, he started to walk away, effectively ignoring her and ending the brief exchange.

What he couldn't ignore, however, was the hand that had grabbed his arm, heedless of the sticky goo of melted ice cream. He could have easily broken her grip, but a glance backwards confirmed it: any further steps would be considered complete noncompliance and a certain dark-haired girl would take drastic measures to ensure he remained long enough to answer her questions. He wasn't daring enough to find out what said drastic measures might be, so he turned back around.

"Don't you know you're not supposed to talk to strangers, kid?" he questioned instead, feeling a smug sense of satisfaction that he could _finally, literally _talk down to someone because she was more than a foot shorter than he was (a rare occurrence). Apparently the girl didn't appreciate the diminutive, either, and she bristled in anger.

"You wear funny clothes," she pointed out instead, and Tōshirō made the jump that her words had hinted at: she didn't count him as a stranger because she knew he wasn't of her world. How she knew was a mystery, he had no idea, but she knew anyway.

It made him curious, and he surveyed her with a critical, probing eye. As a baby, she'd been able to sense him easily, but he had written that down years ago as a result of her location: Karakura Town. How much had her power grown in a few years? He reached out with his senses, not bothering with concealment, and checked out her reiryoku.

It was far greater than most souls, but it was still almost miniscule in comparison to even low-level Shinigami. Nothing impressive, but it still amazed him that a four-year-old girl who was still alive could even have that much reiryoku.

"Hey," she interrupted his thoughts, obviously tired of waiting for an answer. "What are you?"

Tōshirō didn't miss that she'd changed the "who" into a "what," and he frowned at her. It didn't seem to have any effect, which was mildly disappointing considering how the same look could send Shinigami stumbling over themselves to fulfill his orders.

"None of your concern," he finally answered. That answer seemed like the wrong one, because the incensed Karin poked at his chest with a sticky finger.

"I'm big enough to know!" she said loudly, a hint of a whine latched onto the end of the sentence that told him this statement was an oft-used one. He knew how that went: at the Shinōreijutsuin, before he'd established his relationship as a prodigy, most of the students would dismiss him as "too young" to do any of the practices. He sympathized, but he certainly wasn't letting this little girl know anything.

"I think you should go back to your sister," Tōshirō told her, bringing about another variant of a glare that he classified as her annoyed glare. It seemed like she only had one default expression that had tiny nuanced differences: annoyed, angry, and pouty were just a few he had already seen on that scowling face.

"No!" Karin said petulantly, stomping her foot down for emphasis. Tōshirō was starting to think that the only way he was going to escape the tenacious hellion was to shunpō away, but over her shoulder he noted the return of the brunette, carrying another ice cream and frowning across the street at Karin.

"Your sister's back," he pointed out, and she spun around to confirm it. He took the opportunity for what it was, shunpōing away from the onyx-eyed girl while she wasn't looking. Not that he thought it really mattered; the brunette obviously couldn't see him, and Karin already knew that he wasn't exactly of this world.

_Oh well, _he huffed to himself, trying to bolster his spirits as he sensed Matsumoto's reiatsu and headed towards it like a beacon. The odd meeting had convinced him that it was time to get back to Seireitei, and he was glad to be returning from the heat.

He tried not to think of it as the retreat it was, putting persistent onyx eyes out of his mind. It wasn't like he'd _lost _in the confrontation or anything; it was merely a tactical move to leave at that moment.

Tōshirō used Matsumoto's whining and wheedling as an excuse to stop thinking about how a four-year-old girl would have certainly wrung out every little secret if she had stared at him for much longer. Those onyx eyes were _unnerving._

_

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_

"Why were you over there?" Yuzu asked Karin as soon as she had made it back across. Karin shrugged in response.

"I saw something," she answered easily, reaching out to take the other ice cream from her sister. It was green—mint—and still fresh, not dripping down her hand like her other one was. She spared the old ice cream a single parting glance before starting to throw it away before doing a double take.

"Hey!" Yuzu said excitedly. "How'd you make it stop being melty?"

Karin stared at her old ice cream. It had frozen again, pristine and looking just as fresh as the new one in her right hand. The only difference was the obvious smooth sides from where the ice cream had melted.

"It must'a been colder over there," Karin answered casually, eyeing the ice cream suspiciously. Then, with a blink of her dark eyes, the expression was gone. She smiled widely at her sister. "Double ice cream for me!"

"Hey!" Yuzu pouted, but Karin ignored her. She was going to share anyway, and Yuzu knew that, too.

What Yuzu didn't know about was the mysterious boy that Karin had talked to and the brush of a hand against hers that she thought she had imagined as he left, as cold and frosty as snow. He was gone now, so Karin didn't have to bother thinking about him anymore.

Chomping down into her minty ice cream, she tried not to think about how the color almost matched a certain blue-green pair of eyes. Nope, Karin most certainly wasn't going to think of that anymore.

* * *

A/N: I apologize for the not-quite-instantaneous update; I'm a very busy high school/college student, as many of you lovely readers are, and I'm also leaving to Europe (!!) in two days, so things have been hectic. That said...

[This was edited by the lovely RukiLex who keeps on telling me I fail at using idioms.]

_Wow!! _The response to the first chapter was amazing, and it's clear to see that a lot of other people want to see their origins explored a bit more than was done in canon. A question about that in reference to you anonymous reviewers: I'm not sure how you'd like me to reply to your reviews, so maybe leave emails? There used to be a way you could do that...I also apologize for the length. Really, I don't _usually _write short tiny chapters like this. They will increase in length (exponentially!) when I get more comfortable with the characters and when Karin grows old enough to actually have observations and real dialogue of her own. Tōshirō's sort of a man of few words. x) Karin's supposed to be 4-ish years old, and this is before Masaki dies.

VickyVicarious, if you read you will now find a legitimate reason as to why a Captain would be in Karakura when it's not wartime. :)

Thank you so much, again, for the resonating welcome to the fandom, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

Roma

p.s. In light of the recent Haiti disaster and coupled with National De-Lurking Day, I've decided to donate $1 for every review/PM I receive from now until midnight on Friday.


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